My wrestling watching fan days ended long ago, but I sometimes see part of Smackdown on Friday night before work since there's so little on then. They've really amped up the production, the bombast, and the visuals over the years, and the women have gotten better looking in a trashy sort of way. Yet the sense of fun just isn't there for me.

I had heard about the McMahon vs. Trump proxy hair match, color me unsurprised that Trump kept his hair. Wikipedia says Trump did get a Stone Cold Stunner from Austin, that might have fun to watch.

I used to watch wrestling in the first half of the '80s, but lost interest long ago. Now if they'd come out with a women's wrestling show...

There was a pretty funny scene on one of those shows not long ago though - two wrestlers were out in the parking lot beating the tar out of each other, and the announcers were excitedly exclaiming about how unbelievable the action was, then we got a quick camera shot of the announcers and they had their heads down, reading all this stuff off their scripts. Too funny.

« Last Edit: April 03, 2007, 11:02:33 AM by Jack »

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Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

My main years for Pro Wrestling viewing were (1980 - 1985). I haven't really been a big Pro Wrestling fan since about 1985 but did have a major ressurgence for me during the WWF/WCW/ECW days of the later 90's.

1) Ric Flair would say that Pro Wrestling goes through cycles of popularity about every 10 years.

2) Nick Bockwinkel once said that over exposer will kill Pro Wrestling. With satillite television it's hard to keep the "acts" fresh. With the old regional promotions before satillite a wrestler could move from territory to territory and find a new audience for his "act". Now with satillite they have no where to hide. Before they could go to another region and then return at some later time with the fans anticipating and remembering the chaos he created with just a mention of his return.

3) Vince McMahan once had a strategy for killing Pro Wrestling so he could ressurect it later on, but Turners WCW stopped him in the 90's and ECW brought a whole new brand of extreme matches.

4) Terry Funk was correct when he said that WWE has to change their format with the Titantron and such to give the matches a different aura. A different atmosphere. Perhaps this is what WWE has done with their new ECW show and TNA with the octagon ring, but nothing will beat the old close up studio matches of the 70's and early 80's where you felt like you were close to that action and could even hear the voices of ther wrestlers better.

It's hard to bring in fresh new talent with ring and mic skills that come from years of experience. That's why you see a bunch of muscle guys with no real talent in the WWE now days. Hulk Hogan could get away with it because of his instant charisma, but most aren't born with that. Actually Hogan did have to develope the act over a number of years before he became big and then the film ROCKY III put him over the top. Pro Wrestlers have to develope a character over time which comes with years of being and watching things in the ring from veterans who know the business.

Wrestling today feels like a carciature of itself. At least years ago they attempted to create some sustained level of believability and at least played it up like it was a real sport adding to the overall illusion but nowadays they don't even seem to try very hard at making it take on any semblance of reality. It usually just feels like guys are going through the motions out there now and everything is so pre-scripted nowadays, with wrestlers running through their pre-planned spots that when fans naturally respond in a way unexpected, the wrestlers unlike those from years back and a few of the veterans still around (who tend to get far better response from the fans than the newer guys) no longer seem to know how to improvise on the spot in order to work and excite the crowd watching.

Yea, I think The Undertaker is a good example. When they had him talking more a year or two ago with the motorcycle he wasn't doing so well, but you leave him alone with only an entrance and departure and you have an interesting character, but when you follow them behind the scenes you loose a lot of the mystique of the individual wrestler. Not all the talented wrestlers can talk and not all the talkers can wrestle. Even when you get both they get boring with over exposer. After all it's a show and not real competition, so exposer is a killer.

The wrestlers from 70's and early 80's had a mythos. They were indestructible and when they did get hurt it there was a very serious tone to it. They would come on camera and beat a jobber in a match designed to exhibit all the skills of the "star" then when the match was over maybe an interview about the weeks coming matches in various local towns and that was it. The Dark Ages of Wrestling. They also developed the flying break "fall" during those years and the studio matches were perfect for sound effects coming from the ring falls and stomping punches and kicks.

Now they have "stars" fight in every televised match. There are no "jobbers" anymore and the crowd is to prominent and distracting from the in ring psychology of the match. There was a time in about the late 80's you started to hear the crowds shout "boring" during the matches. Unfortunately they picked the unhappy fan over that special something that made it magic. Guess times change and you can't bring it back. Perhaps a new "era" will come into the Wrestling world through a wrestler or style that will come about through new media outlets. Not sure how they can do it because they tried with the Raw/Smackdown/and now ECW old and new school. They tried creating other entities within themselves, but it's still clearly WWE.

They just had Chris Benoit submit to John Cena a couple weeks ago. Can you believe that?

Sometimes you'll see the wrestlers screw up their intended spot and then repeat it over again despite this flub....making me and I assume many other viewers groan because it's so obvious what they're doing, that one guy is laying there waiting for the other guy to do a fancy flip on top of him, whatever. The old-time wrestlers tended to know how to cover their butts in the case of such mistakes and often called their matches in the ring as they were happening without all this laid out scripting and spot for spot stuff that goes on nowadays. These old pros actually used and manipulated the crowd to their ends and the crowds back then ate it up. I miss the old smoke-filled arenas atmosphere with the little old ladies who cried foul whenever the heel would cheat and often would get visually upset with said heel. I miss the cries from the audience for blood, violence and mayhem with at least a portion of said audience fooled by the exhibition going on in front of them.

I used to be a big Wrestling fan back when I was a kid. I briefly came back to it in the late 90's/early 00's, when the cruiserweights of WCW caught my eye, primarily. I briefly watched the WWF then as well, but they were more about selling T-shirts with catch-phrases all over them then wrestling. Unfortunately, WCW was plagued by old men hogging the spotlight, the company was absorbed by the competition, catch-phrases eventually won out over talent, and I haven't watched any Pro Wrestling since.

The old-time wrestlers tended to know how to cover their butts in the case of such mistakes and often called their matches in the ring as they were happening without all this laid out scripting and spot for spot stuff that goes on nowadays. These old pros actually used and manipulated the crowd to their ends and the crowds back then ate it up.

I miss the old smoke-filled arenas atmosphere with the little old ladies who cried foul whenever the heel would cheat and often would get visually upset with said heel. I miss the cries from the audience for blood, violence and mayhem with at least a portion of said audience fooled by the exhibition going on in front of them.

At least the fans were able to suspend their beliefs in "reality" for a brief time through the talent of those in the ring.

I used to be a big Wrestling fan back when I was a kid. I briefly came back to it in the late 90's/early 00's, when the cruiserweights of WCW caught my eye, primarily. I briefly watched the WWF then as well, but they were more about selling T-shirts with catch-phrases all over them then wrestling. Unfortunately, WCW was plagued by old men hogging the spotlight, the company was absorbed by the competition, catch-phrases eventually won out over talent, and I haven't watched any Pro Wrestling since.

The "Monday Night Wars" between WCW and WWF were great during the late 90's with Steve Austin, Mick Foley, NWO, and many more.

Wrestling fans? good listen to this ... In an interview with CBS Sportsline, Brock Lesnar says he would be willing to fight former pro wrestling colleague Kurt Angle. thats fight as in MMA

"If somebody wants to set it up, I'm all for it," confirms Lesnar, who makes his MMA debut on June 2 against Hong-Man Choi.

I cant wait to see him fight in MMA.

It would be interesting, but TNA (Angle's current place of employment) won't allow him to fight with MMA. Plus, considering that Angle has broken his neck numerous times and is in nowhere near top shape, an MMA style fight could conceivably kill him. In TNA, he can work around his limitations; in a "real" fight, that wouldn't be possible. Angle has wanted to fight in MMA for a while, but it wouldn't be in his best interests to do so.

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"They tap dance not, neither do they fart." --Greensleeves, on the Fig Men of the Imagination, in "Twice Upon a Time."